Task 5 - Methods Of Research

Why research before conducting an advertisement? What's the point?

Research is extremely important when producing an advertisement. Why you ask? Because advertisements are made for the public. The people you want to influence. How can you make an advert without any knowledge of who it's for?

Let's say you were conducting an advert for a kids toy. In this advert all you were talking about was how it's 'at an affordable price'. What child would be engaged in an advert like that? On the contrary, if you did some research on how to effectively persuade kids that this toy is extravagant, you would realise how much of a difference it makes.

Knowing your audience is the most important thing. If you can't put yourself in the audience's shoes, and how they'd feel watching it then how would you make an effective advert?

Primary Research

Primary research is research about the public. What they like, what they dislike, what engages them, what repulses them, what makes them laugh, what irritates them. Surveys are the most common way of collecting this data. The advantages of primary research is that it gives you an insight of how the general public would be influenced by adverts. The disadvantage is that it is not 100% correct. Remember you're only using a certain percentage of the public, you're not surveying the whole of the UK. 

Secondary Research 

This then brings me onto secondary data. Secondary data is data collected by someone else, and compared by you. This way you're looking at both sets of data and seeing what is most popular for your chosen audience's perspective. The advantage of this is that you get to have a general overlook on the public and having that contrast between not only the public's idea on advertising but comparing your ideas and the general public's ideas together. The disadvantage is that you obviously can't base on these results that everyone who sees this advert is going to love it. You have to think outside the box a little bit. Yeah, the general public likes these ideas, but how can I make this advert powerful enough to attempt to grab everyone's undivided attention?

Quantitative Research

Opinions. Quantitative research is based around YOUR opinion. But the questions asked should be in a structured manor best suited for the information that you want to know. This way you can find the best statistics and facts. The advantage of quantitative research is that you'll get true answers. Why? Because you're sking the public for THEIR opinion, and making them feel like they have your undivided attention. The disadvantage is that the people you interview could potentially not give their real opinions and so you have to make the questions asked comfortable for the public.